Steve Lovell knew something
was wrong when he started running again after a knee injury.
And I found I could only run for a block or two and just got really fatigue.
And I thought, well, you know, you're getting older.
It's going to take some time. Just push through it.
That was the first sign.
The second sign was
when he went to donate blood and they warned him something was off.
The technician couldn't see any red blood cells.
They recommended he see his doctor.
The doctor herself called me at 8 a.m.
the next morning and said, I need you in today and be prepared.
He may need to go to the hospital tonight.
Steve found out he had a type of blood cancer called Mido
dysplasia or M.D.s.
It's something you really can't prepare for.
You know, you hear the cancer word and immediately,
you know, fear and apprehension and all that.
Steve ended up needing a bone marrow transplant, which he had in 2010 at
what was then Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, SCCA and Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center merged in 2022 and are now known as Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
The hardest part of having cancer.
The recovery period where he needed around the clock help.
Lived by myself in downtown Seattle.
And they mentioned, they said for about three months
you're going to have to have someone with you seven by 24.
And I thought, oh, my gosh,
I may not be able to do the treatment because I don't have someone.
Fortunately for Steve, his friends and coworkers at Alaska
Airlines stepped up in a big way.
It was pretty amazing.
I had a group of probably about ten
different caregivers who rotated around to make sure that I had the care I needed.
And of course, the care.
Fred Hutch is just phenomenal.
Steve is cured of his cancer, but he does suffer from some side effects
from the treatment, and he comes in once a year for checkups.
Because of the miracle Steve experienced here.
He is giving back.
He recently donated hundreds of volunteer hours over
more than two years to help design a new six story building at the center.
The goal of the expansion to help make sure other cancer patients
have the best possible experience while they go through
what is likely the worst experience of their lives.
When you go on a cancer journey, you've never been that journey before.
You don't know what to expect and you can feel like you're losing a lot of control.
And I felt like there were some things that we could do with the clinic
building to really give back that control to patients to make it
a better journey for them.
The team of around 45 people spent more than two thoughtful years
working to make sure everyone's perspective was included in the plan.
From patients, caregivers to staff.
Integrated facility design really takes into.
Account the experience of the people who are in the environment
and who are doing the work in the environment.
We were hands on with the staff to come up with what would work.
That's what I thought was unique upfront,
you know, and it started with pieces of paper.
What's it going to look like?
And then it moved to little scale mockups like,
so we would put different things and little furniture in
and stuff like that, just like you would maybe a dollhouse or something.
But this dollhouse went full scale next.
They literally built an entire floor out of cardboard.
We built.
Out a life sized mockups of the floors in a warehouse down in Des Moines.
And it was just an open warehouse and a whole lot of cardboard.
And that meant building the sinks, building the tables, building the chairs,
the walls.
We literally.
Ran scenarios. And, you know what worked?
What didn't work? On a monday, we build it Tuesday.
We'd run scenarios. And if we wanted to tweak something,
we just tore the cardboard out and redid it.
Wednesday we'd tweak things and by Friday.
Maybe we had the design baked.
And we did that over and over for months and months.
The work might sound tedious, but when you see the 150,000
square feet of new space, you know it was worth it.
If you make things easier for
staff, they're able to spend the time they need and focus on the patients.
If the patients are an environment that is less
stressful, it's going to benefit their healing.
Good morning, Heather. How are you today?
What you will see here?
Traditional waiting rooms.
Instead, the entire design is aimed at cutting wait times
and keeping patients in one space by just making sure
the room is big enough to deliver all of that care to the patient.
It means that the patient comes. They can relax.
Their caregiver has a space with them.
We're bringing everything to them.
One of the other unique features
of the new building is an automated parking garage.
Patients pull up at a valet, takes the car into
an elevator system that parks it for them.
The idea here is to save patients time and stress.
And then when the patients and families come out, they request their car.
The car is brought up for them
and they just drive off, make it very easy and low stress.
All of that time traveling, checking in, waiting.
That's a waste for the patient.
It's non value added time.
There are also a lot of large windows and soothing
artwork to create a peaceful feeling.
We really did want to make sure that we brought light
and hope and in an.
Atmosphere that supported.
The patient experience.
As well as the staff. Experience.
When this came up, I felt like this is this is what I need to do
because I need to give back.
Putting in that kind of an effort is it makes it even more rewarding.
I think when I come over here, I just get a warm feeling of all the work we did.
What's neat is it's here.